MSc in Environmental Design of Buildings: Distance learning option

Distinguishing features

The distance option has obvious advantages to students who are unable to attend the course in Cardiff either because they cannot be free for a year as full-time students or because they are too far away to travel here for teaching days. Like the part-time option, it is primarily intended for students who are in full-time work, reducing their study pace to a third of that of full-time students.

The teaching is entirely on line through the Internet, using an electronic learning environment called Blackboard. It includes interactive exercises for students, and project work supervised on line. There is a forum in which students discuss ongoing progress with both staff and their fellow students. Students do not need to travel to Cardiff at any time, although of course they are welcome to visit if they would like to make contact.

The modules are the ones taken in the local course, and their syllabus and learning outcomes are essentially the same. Students earn the same numbers of credits for modules, and the MSc degree awarded on completion has the same standing as the local degree. The learning experience is inevitably different because of the unique method of teaching. The need to document the teaching material for this version of the course to suit individual study has led to a higher quality of teaching material than is generally available on locally taught courses.

Technical requirements

The Distance Learning version of the course requires access to the course web site to deliver the latest course information and allow students to communicate with tutors. It follows that students have to be set up with appropriate computer hardware, peripherals, web connections, and software. Unlike local students, who are able to fall back on University equipment if theirs proves inadequate, you are completely reliant on your own equipment.

Hardware

If you are buying new, then you should follow the University's specification for its own computers. This can be found on http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/it/hardware/index.html.

If, as is more likely, you are expecting to use equipment that you already own, then you should be sure that it can cope with recent software releases and network connection speeds, bearing in mind that there are aspects of the course that ask you to use advanced building performance simulation software. The following is the minimum standard that you will require to take part in the course, and a more comfortable standard.

Minimum	Preferred
Intel Pentium II processor	Intel Pentium 4
two free USB ports	two free USB 2.0 ports
512 MB of available RAM	2 GB
1 GB of available hard-disk space	4 GB
800 x 600, high-colour display	1024 x 768, millions of colours
CDROM-RW drive	DVD-R-RW drive
Sound card, microphone & headphones
USB web camera
Colour flat-bed scanner
Broadband connection to an ISP

Software

The software used in the course is 32bit and generally requires Microsoft Windows. If your operating system is older that Windows XP, you should consider installing that. If you are buying new, then you are likely to have Windows Vista installed. Unfortunately, the University continues to use Windows XP; and at the moment we have not had a great deal of experience with Vista to check any software compatibility problems.

The following is the software that you should have to be able to undertake the course. Equivalent software from other manufacturers is acceptable. The essential requirement for graphic software is to enable students to communicate with tutors by sketching, to prepare drawings for coursework, and to lay out and submit presentations to A2 size in PDF format. The drawing package recommended below should do all this.

Any other course-specific analysis software will be provided as required.

Minimum	Preferred
Windows XP  (not NT)
Internet browser	Internet Explorer
E-mail connection
Zip compatible compression software	WinZip 7.0
Word-processing and spreadsheet software	Microsoft Word and Excel
PDF reading capability	Adobe Acrobat
Drawing software with PDF writing capability	Corel Draw Essentials (or better)
Square One Weather Tool and Ecotect software

It may sometimes be possible to use an operating system other than MS Windows, such as MacOS or Linux. In using a non-Windows PC students must accept responsibility for developing any new skills needed, and we cannot guarantee that students will be able to access any software and data files supplied with the course material. If they use a Windows emulator they must be sure they have enough memory to run the course software as well.

Distance students must have general competence in the operation and use of a computer and its internet connection. It will be assumed that students are able to install and manage new software, utilise desktop publishing, word processing and spreadsheet software. If students are not completely comfortable with the use of computers, it may still be possible to complete the course but students may find their progress slow and frustrating. The technical help offered will be limited, so students should also make sure that they have some other form of support in case they run into difficulties.